Taking down the tree...and paying for our tickets

Shawn, Kyle, and our two cousins, Thomas, and Brighton were in charge of burning the Christmas tree this year (for those who live in the city, you may dispose of your tree in a different way). But here on the farm, it is always an exciting event to take the tree out to the burn pile and burn it (at least it always has been for my brothers).
The boys took the tree and dumped it on the burn pile, drenched it with gas and then started trowing fire crackers on it until it would start, and when it lit, the tree went up in flames and burned in seconds.
After the tree burning show, I went back in and the boys didnt come back in for awhile, but from inside the house all we could hear were very loud and illegal fireworks from Wyoming going off. Good thing Shawn was out supervising!

I was able to talk my parents into buying Shawn and I tickets out to Oregon for New Years, and told them that we would clean up and put away all the Christmas decorations for them to help pay for the tickets. They agreed and thats how we ended up going to both Wyoming and Oregon for Christmas. BUT...my mother loves Christmas, and she loves Christmas decorations. Lucky for us she didnt put up as much as usual, because the house is usually darned with 7 Christmas trees elaborately decorated, wreaths on every door, Christmas lights and Christmas tree pine wrapped around all the staircases, then there are all the stockings, dishes,Santas, snowmen, and her very large collection of nativities...everywhere! But the decorations, and Christmas music always playing and the delicious Christmas smells are one of my favorite reasons to come home and I look forward to it each year on Christmas!

Thanks mom and dad for the tickets, we loved coming home to Oregon!

Shawns new toy

I didnt take many pictures of Shawn and I at home in Oregon for New Years. But I did get a couple pictures of what Shawn did a majority of the time he was in Oregon...and that was play with his new remoste control car. On our second day in Oregon we visited with our aunt and uncle and cousins across the street and three of our little girl cousins got new remoste control cars, so Shawn and kyle played with those all night(finally until the little girls were crying and wanted them back). So the next morning my mom and I set out to go and buy new remote control cars for both Shawn and Kyle to play with, and that they did... in between football bowl games that is!

Home Sweet Home!

Home sweet home! It is so good to be home, Shawn and I flew in on Friday night and we will be here until Wednesday. I love coming home to Oregon and to all my family that I love so much!!!

CHRISTMAS IN WYOMING!

Shawn and I left Saturday morning (after we opened our presents to eachother) and headed up to Evanston, Wyoming to celebrate Christmas with his dad and family. We had a great time ( but I still missed my family and Christmas in Oregon alot). We had a great Platt Christmas! Brandon and Mandi and their two boys came to visit on Saturday, then Amanda, Ben and Vincient came for the day Sunday to play. And of course we got the play with Necha, Josh, Tessa, Maggie, Joseph, and Eugene the whole stay!
On Christmas morning we got to go through our stockings, and open some camping clothes from Necha and Josh, open some goodies from Garrett and Cynthia, and open a huge double sleeping bag from Eugene. We said we needed some camping stuff for the upcoming camping trips the family is planning on going on!
We got to play in the snow, visit with lots of Shawn's high school buddies, play lots of fun family games together, eat yummy food, and just spend lots of quality time together talking and relaxing!!! We love our trips to Evanston, and we really love spending time with Eugene and Joseph and the rest of the Platt family!
HOORAY FOR NEW YEARS IN OREGON!!!!!!!

More Christmas Pictures

Here is Joseph playing his new Guitar he got from Santa Clause, Joseph is always playing his guitar when we are there visiting, he loves it. He was very ecited for his new guitar!
Here is Shawn with our cute little matching nieces (the only two there are with 7 little nephews) they are wearing their new Christmas jammies, they definatly look like sisters!
Grandpa Eugene with Vincent on Sunday. Amanda, Ben and Vince came for the day to play with us all. Vince loves to show off his teeth and close his eyes for all his pictures. He is so cute!
Here is a picture of Shawn's older sister, Necha, with baby Maggie. We had lots of fun hanging with Josh and Necha and their cute little girls during the whole break, it is so nice that they live so close to Eugene and Joseph so we get to see them all the time!!!

Opening presents alittle early

Shawn and I decided to open our gifts to eachother alittle early this year. We opened them on Saturday morning (as you can tell we had just woken up) before we headed up to Evanston for Christmas with the Platts!!! Shawn bought me some new perfume, a new coat, a pan, and some scrapbook stuff. I could tell that he had put alot of thought into each of the gifts that he had picked out for me. Then I surprised Shawn with a big new truck tool box that fits in the back of his truck (he has been wanting one for a very long time) I also got him a new white shirst for church, a cute new coat, some tools, and a gift card to Carl's Jr (his favorite). We had a fun time opening presents to eachother, and look forward to opening more presents in Wyoming from Shawn's dad and then again in Oregon with my parents when we fly out for New Years! We love Christmas!

Christmas lights and a night with the family!

Shawn and I got to spend Tuesday evening in Salt Lake with my family, we had alot of fun together! We got to see a huge gingerbread house in the Grand America hotel where my parents were staying then we got to all have dinner together and then Shawn and I finalized our Salt Lake trip by seeing the amazing lights at Temple Square.

And here is a picture of two of my favorite boys, Shawn and Jared Paul. Jared had his surgery yesterday, I got to stay at the hospital with him for the day, which was fun and alittle sad too. We were told he was going to have a 1 hour surgery with a 1 hour recovery time and then he could go home that evening. Well, that turned into a 3 1/2 hour surgery with almost a 2 hour recovery time and an over night stay in the hospital and a loss of way to much blood which required two blood tranfusions...nothing easy is ever going to go Jareds way (but we have realized that already).............good thing he is so tough!!!